American sovereignty is a matter of geography, firepower, culture, and law. It’s not easy to threaten.

And private trade deficits are not balanced by sovereign debt, they are balanced by private debt and foreign direct investment, which don’t threaten sovereignty.

The 1990s U.S. reaction to Japanese business success was primarily driven by popular xenophobia, not economic analysis. It was resolved by the dotcom bubble, an explosion of American innovation that changed the conversation. Not by government policy.

It's hard to ignore the implosion of the Japanese real estate bubble as a contributor of receding Japanese influence in the US since then. The Plaza Accords are widely attributed to this.